This is important finding that clears a lot of confusion. I used to answer countless of questions from diabetics (on other forums), the most frequent was this, paraphrasing:

"Why should I eat high fat diet if we know that it would increase my already high insulin resistance?"

This article is telling us that the answer to this is that it won't!

It will make pancreas stop reacting to blood glucose while you are eating fat AND carbohydrates at the same time. This won't matter you eat fat on its own with very little or no carbs! On the other hand, diabetic insulin resistance appears in this light to be a totally different phenomenon - related to body tissues and organs being permanently resistant to insulin that is already produced by pancreas and circulating throughout the body!

Will fat affect the tissue insulin resistance as well? Yes - probably by reducing it! As me and millions of other people who tried Dr. Jan Kwasniewski's Optimal Diet, have found!

We are probably dealing here with two opposing effects:

1) Detrimental effect of dietary fat upon pancreas preventing it from reacting to blood glucose
(Which matters if and only if one consumes significant amount of carbohydrates together and simultaneously with fat).

2) Positive long term effect of dietary fat upon body tissues and organs

Can a fatty meal impair cardiovascular health? Absolutely, since it can lead to hyperglycemia due to (1) if the meal is also high in carbs (I will pass that carrot cake, thank you...)

Can a high fat meal reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (see this)? Absolutely! If it is low in carbohydrates!

This clarifies also another issue, namely Dr. Kwasniewski's claim that a diet with 35-45% fat by calories is the most detrimental to one's health (for adults). It makes a lot more sense in the light of this article. (Note: since a diet typically would contain 10-20% protein, therefore 35-45% fat means 35-55% carbohydrates, by calories).

Bottom line:
- Do not mix high carbohydrate diet with high fat nutrition! .

A cycling between those two types of nutrition is not recommended because it takes time for the body to switch over from a high carb diet to a high fat low carb (ketogenic) diet. Minimum 2 weeks for young adults up to about 2 months for older people. This is based on the experience of Optymalni Association (Poland), see also Dr. Jan Kwasniewski's books such as "Optymal Nutrition" and "Homo Optimus". This also agrees (if my memory is accurate) with Dr. W. Lutz published data (in his book "Life Without Bread"). An opposite switch - from a high fat low carb diet back to a high carb diet may take longer. I do not remember the exact figures (and am not sure if such data exists or was published in any form). Based on a personal communication by a doctor who observed it on some patients, it may be of the order of a few months (~6). Stan

About Me

(hires pic) I am a physicist, sensor design consultant (website) and embedded software engineer (picture of my lab). This blog is meant to collect essays, articles and debates on optimal human nutrition, science and other topics. This board is for like-minded people who know (or will know) each other and share certain common values. I welcome all heresies and opposing views, and discourage conformity of any kind. I sincerely welcome all people who are creative and like doing things, are self-reliant, have individualistic mindset and do not like wasting too much time on socializing, sport or mainstream entertainment. I am currently interested in the socio-anthropological theory (link) of evolutionary regression in developed countries.